This invention relates to a roulette playing device played by releasing a ball into one of a number of ball pockets bearing betting marks.
The prior art of the field this invention belongs to is described in, e.g., Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 18072/1984 and 8704/1986.
The prior art roulette playing device comprises a roulette wheel, a circular runway and a circular wall, as major members. The roulette wheel is positioned at the center of the device and has a plurality of ball pockets bearing betting marks. The roulette wheel is whirled by a separate motor or other means. The circular runway surrounds the roulette wheel and has the running surface declined radially inward. The circular wall is set up from the outer boundary of the runway and is continuous therearound. A ball is let out from a release opening formed in the circular wall.
In the above-described prior art device as shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 18072/1984, the release opening is formed in the circular wall on a level even with that where the ball is running on the runway along the outermost circumference thereof, and the running ball often accidentally falls into the release opening. The running ball often goes astray in an unanticipated direction, and this has made the game less amusing. Besides, when the ball is released at a high speed and accidentally falls into the release opening, it deviates and rebounds outside over the circular wall.
On the other hand, games are played on the roulette playing device by players putting betting coins into slots formed in the device, anticipating the ball pocket identified by a betting mark into which the ball will go. Before and after a release of the ball it is prohibited to put betting coins into slots.
In the prior art device, the prohibition of putting betting coins into slots (NO BETTING) is timed manually, i.e., by an operator of a game center. That is, an operator watches the ball running on the ciruclar runway to push a NO BETTING button or the like so as to timely reject the betting coins put in after the operation of the NO BETTING button. For automatic NO BETTING operation, it is proposed to reject the betting coins put in within a certain period of time from release of the ball.
In the device in which the NO BETTING operation is made manually by an operator, it is necessary for an operator to always attend to the device. The timing of the NO BETTING operation is irregular depending on surroundings, etc. in a game center. In the device in which the NO BETTING operation is automatically made after a certain period of time from release of the ball, the operation is badly timed when the ball goes astray.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 8704/1986 referred to above discloses the art of disposing ball sensors along the circular runway.
But the sensors are for accelerating the ball with magnetic force and not for timing the NO BETTING operation.